The state, business and education

Public–private partnership (PPP) in education has gained enormous momentum in different parts of the world, including in developing countries. What started out in the 1960s with the notion that technology could help bypass teachers and therefore supposedly individualize learning, rapidly became a highly desirable business model for technology companies such as IBM, Dell Computers and later Apple. The sale of machines, programs and courses to interested districts and schools has half a century later reached an unprecedented economy of scale. Over the last dozen years or so, as proponents of privatization have successfully promoted a transformation of the role of business from supplier to “partner,” the notion of public education has become diluted by increasing state contracting or subsidy to for-profit entities carrying out wholeschool and university establishment and management. What is more, the education industry is doing remarkably well despite periodic scandals.
[Cheltenham, UK: 2018]

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